A gap year you’ll never forget is a gap year spent in New Zealand, trust us when we say that there’s something for everyone. But what will make yours unforgettable? Will it be the food in windy Wellington? The wine and fruit in art deco themed Hawkes Bay? The multicultural diverse population of our very own super city Auckland? The outdoor adventure and extreme sports opportunities from the birthplace of the bungee jump in Queenstown? The harsh yet beautiful terrain just waiting to be explored in north and south islands backcountry? Or is it just the fact that we are middle earth, and that’s awesome? Take your pick!

Before we tell you more about our stunning little country at the bottom of the world, why should you decide to take a gap year in the first place? The most obvious reason, you’ve been at school for over ten years now! You DESERVE a break. What you do with this break can give you a big leg up before starting tertiary study or your career – So let us take a look at what a gap year can do for you!

• You get to see the world
• Meet new people from all walks of life
• New and different work opportunities
• Grow and mature as a young adult
• Discover yourself and your passion
• Develop new skills you otherwise wouldn’t of
• Decide if university or the workforce is the next step for you
• Open your mind to different cultures and ways of thinking

Essentially, a gap year is a time for you to figure out who you are, and decide what the next step in your life will be. A gap year gives you opportunities to learn through experience which better enables you make big life decisions. It is a time for you to reflect, refocus and grow. The world is yours, so use it!

​New Zealand! Everyone has heard of it, some know sort of where it is but not many have seen it, and here’s why you should…It’s a world away from the world, being so far away from everything gives you a great feeling of escape and freedom where you can leave your worries behind and begin your own adventure. As mentioned before – there’s something for everyone. It doesn’t matter what you’re into, New Zealand will find you somewhere you can feel right at home. With a wide range of activities and opportunities, you are sure to find a passion or two. We are an extremely diverse country so you will meet individuals from different cultures every day, and we’re all super friendly. As far as being laid back goes, New Zealand takes the cake where we are frequently described as a “chill” country, so you won’t feel any pressure here. When talking expenses, New Zealand is on the cheaper end of the scale so you shouldn’t struggle once you get here. The backpacking scene is massive, so you will have no trouble making friends. Most major countries citizens don’t need a visa to visit for the first three months, and after that there are a wide variety of visa options that can suit you depending on how you want to spend your time here. We’re pretty small so you won’t get swamped under people or constantly find yourself lost. To top it off, we have so many gap year programs to suit peoples differing needs, what more could you possibly want?

Adventure awaits and New Zealand is waiting for you; are you brave enough to take it on?

​“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” – Neale Donald Walsch
 
References/resources:
https://www.gooverseas.com/gap-year/new-zealand
http://www.horizons.co.nz/gap/
http://www.gapwork.com/gap-year-jobs/new-zealand/index.html
http://www.realgap.co.uk/new-zealand
http://www.yfu.co.nz/student-exchange/gap-year-programs/
https://www.gapyear.com/countries/new-zealand
http://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/50-unforgettable-gap-year-adventures-for-free/
​
Posted by Shannon Stevens

“A well-structured Gap Year allows students to learn and be creative which helps in coping with the pressures of adult academic and professional settings.”      (uncollege, 2016).

The possibilities are endless when it comes to taking your very own gap year, so far the research shows the best kind of gap year to take is a pre-structured one. Here’s why:

• Studies show students who attend universities who have taken a structured gap year prior to their first year of study have higher average grades and a much higher graduation rate.
• Individuals who enter the workplace after a structured gap year have higher job satisfaction and work harder than individuals who have not.
• There are multiple different gap year programs available based on your interests and what you want to achieve, these programs team you up with like-minded individuals giving you the best possible experience.
• A structured gap year will put you in new and challenging situations that will enable you to leave your comfort zone and test yourself, this results in maximum experiential learning.
• You will have a mentor/guide/instructor with you throughout your gap year as well as peers that will push you to your limits and be with you every step of the way.
• The tasks put forward will challenge you physically and mentally unleashing your inner full potential and giving you the strength to grow.
• A structured gap year will encourage you to set specific goals then help you to achieve them, it’s all about knowing why you are doing what you are doing.
• A structured gap year has plenty of opportunities, do you want to work? Volunteer? Explore? A combination of several? It’s all up to you.
• Taking a structured gap year takes a mountain of pressure off of you, the company has pretty much everything set up. This gives you time to focus on preparing, saving and getting yourself to your starting destination.

“If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish, you risk accomplishing nothing at all”
(Thinking beyond borders, 2014).
 
Contrary to popular belief, taking a structured gap year will not affect your ability to go back into study – with over 90% of structured gap year participants choosing to do so. It is of the general opinion of these participants that taking a gap year set them up and prepared them for the challenges they faced when starting their first year of university.
A gap year is NOT a vacation, that’s why it is best to choose a structured gap year. When attempting to do a gap year of your own planning rather than the structured type, there are too many factors that can inhibit your chances of success. The two biggest risks are:

• You losing your way – forgetting why you embarked on the journey, what your goals where and who you wanted to grow into – thus achieving nothing. Remember it is important to know why you are doing what you are doing.
• You risk getting stuck – seriously stuck – you could run out of money, make a mistake with a visa, literally get lost, miss a train, bus or plane, the risks of unstructured travel far outweigh the benefits.

With a structured gap year, you needn’t worry about these things. You just need to show up with a full back pack, a smile, a great attitude and a willingness to learn and experience. It’s not a holiday, it’s an experience. Your job now is to determine what structure is right for you?
 
 
References/resources
http://uncollege.org/research
http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/articles/pages/gap-year-.aspx
http://time.com/3898053/myths-gap-year/
https://thinkingbeyondborders.org/programs-for-gap-year-students/choosing-gap-year-program-for-2017/
https://www.gooverseas.com/gap-year/adventure-travel

Posted by Shannon Stevens

Living Your Dreams: Part 1
 
What you will learn:

1. A step-by-step process for stimulating and prioritizing your personal values
2. Explain the process of living with integrity to your values

 
It may be common to set goals however sometimes goals are lost in our every day routine in life, if we familiarise ourselves with what is important to us then consciously we begin to make decisions in life ultimately working towards them.
 
Why we should learn this?
Values are important, they give us direction, clarity and focus. Discovering our values can improve the results we get in certain areas of our life. Foremost, values are important because:

1. Time is our most limited resource; we could either waste our day investing time into actions that don’t produce the results we want or we could make the most of this time and invest it into something that matters.
2. Priorities matter; so we don’t drift off course resulting in poor decisions and results.

 
What does the word Values mean?
Values are priorities that tell you how to spend your time, right here, right now.
 
Why is it important to prioritize your Values?
Because you can’t do everything at once, you have to prioritize what is precious to you.
 
Now let’s begin...

Your Personal Values Hierarchy - WHAT IS TRULY IMPORTANT TO ME?                                               

For example:
Love
Health
Comfort
Fun
Happiness

​NOTE: Preferably a list should range from 10-15 values. The idea is to cut out the marginal ones but still have enough values to continue to reach your goals.
 
Steps to prioritizing values:

1. Identify the top Value
2. Identify the second highest value
3. And so on

 
The answer to this is getting the number one value at the top of your list and the least value at the bottom of your list. If this is proving difficult to prioritise your values try inventing a scenario for each value and then comparing those scenarios.
 
 A prioritized example:

1. Health
2. Love
3. Comfort
4. Happiness
5. Fun
6. Wealth

So, what type of person might this be? Being compassionate, healthy and fulfilling happiness is the type of life they may want to live at this point
 
Lets say we prioritize the example in the opposite order..
 
1. Wealth
2. Fun
3. Happiness
4. Comfort
5. Love
6. Health

So what type of person might this be? Succeeding and becoming wealthy might be more important to this person than personal relationships.
 
So just a refreshment; by prioritising your values consciously, you’ll be able to rely on them when you need to make important decisions in the future. However, this list will only tell you the values that have previously been conditioned to you either by your upbringing or by society.
 
Re-examining your values
You may want to re-examine your values regularly, you can change your values as you please. You may wish to do so once you understand and accept where your current values are taking you, they may stop challenging you, and thus you may now value something else that takes you further into the “best” possible life for you. An example of this is when your current value may be to lose 10kjs and once you have reached that you may focus on a different value while still maintaining your weight.
 
If you keep living by your current values you can expect to receive similar results. Thus, by changing your values ideally every 3-6 months, you change your behaviour and therefore your results.
 
Changing your values may require you to repeat the step-by-step process above. Again think about what is truly most important to you. As stated previously, some values may have to be more important to you than others but once fulfilled you can begin to focus on the others and so on.
 
Take travelling the world as an example, you may go into working mode thus saving money for travel but once travelled to specific satisfactory destinations, your values may shift and you now may wish to focus on building a career.
 
Overall, Use your goals to help you set your values; using values is a far simpler way to help you achieve your goals in the first place. Taking an example such as the ship analogy makes this distinction very clear. Before you can set a course for your ship, you must first determine the port where it will dock. If you set the course without knowing the destination then you will experience huge amount of frustration trying to get your ship to dock where you feel it should.

​Posted by Oceane Branson